Airlocks & Elevators
by chipmunkwithwings
Summary: At first it was just the bad dreams, but Lance soon finds himself trapped alone after a late night talk with his Lion. Can he stay calm and find a way out of this?
1. Trapped in Time

Chapter 1 - "Trapped in time"

I live! im sorry i haven't been posting anything, been working on too many stories at once (this has been sitting in G-Docs since _March_) but anyway - please enjoy!  
trigger warning - claustrophobia and nyctophobia (fear of small spaces and fear of the dark))

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

The castle of Lion's was working again, almost completely free of the Dark Crystal's infection, and they had begun their new journey through space.

Pidge and Shiro were trying to sort through the information they had gained from Sendak. Hunk was spending his time finding ways to upgrade the Yellow lion in the same way Pidge had given her Green lion cloaking. Lance had finished helping Coran clean the cryo pods (pretending not to notice how he would keep one eye on Lance each time he had to step inside); in return the Altean changed how the airlock systems engaged.

They've been in space for about half a week (or a movement, if he uses space time) and without a natural way to tell day or night apart, Lance has been finding it hard to sleep. Allura has told him he can programme his room's settings to darken on a timer but it doesn't seem to be helping. In fact, when the lights dim like that he always gets up and turns them back on, the automated action reminding him of the hallway where he saw King Alfor's ghostly AI.

He's supposed to be sleeping now, knows the others are. Instead, he's wandering through the quiet halls of the ship, avoiding the nightmare that woke him up. He might end up bumping into Coran, who likes to check all the usual hangout rooms for still-awake Humans and either shoo them off to bed or wrap them in a blanket if they have fallen asleep. Lance knows cause he woke up once during such an occurrence.

He, Pidge and Hunk had been in one of the lounges, sprawled out on the huge circular, sunken couch, talking about Earth and what they left behind. Keith had walked in after dinner, Hunk noticing but continuing to talk about his dad teaching him to be a mechanic, joining them silently at first, then slowly contributing his own stories about his dad and Shiro.

The group had all fallen asleep, practically dogpiled on top of each other, lights in the lounge auto-dimmed with the presence of non-active life-signs. Coran had found them during his nightly round, opened a wall panel with a quiet click and draped warm blankets over each sleeping figure. Lance had woken just enough to ask Coran's name in a sleep-hazed voice. The altean had smiled and told him "It's alright lad, go back to sleep." Lance hadn't woken again till Coran had left, opening his eyes and sitting up to feel the heavy fabric shift to his lap. When he realised what was going on, he smiled to the darkness, to the soothing sounds of quiet sighs from Keith, gentle snores from Hunk and faint whistling from Pidge's exhaling breath. Lance had pulled the soft, kinda-wool-but-not fabric around his shoulders and gone back to sleep.

That was before Sendak had turned the Castle against them, before he knew how cold the cryo pods felt when activating and how wrong it felt to watch the ship's lights go dark around him.

Lance would never admit to being scared of something if the thing can't actually hurt him. (And yet… he finds himself avoiding all the airlocks. And he finds himself rubbing his arms as though always cold.) He believes in his family to love him, in Blue to always protect him and his friends. But being scared of the Castle of Lions? Now that it's not infected anymore? That's ...more complicated. That's why Lance is walking through the halls, pondering and ruminating on the events of that day.

Coming to a stop, Lance finds he's walked the whole way from his room, down 7 floors and across most of the ship to the Blue Lion's hanger, without really telling his feet where to go. He looks up, hands shoved into his jacket pockets. "What do you think Blue? Am I just imagining things that aren't there?" A deep purr of a warm, reassuring emotion comes from his lion, lifting his face into a bright grin. "You're right, there's nothing there. I guess there's no need to be scared of the dark when there are stars like you to brighten it," he adds a wink and laughs. He's found that though Blue doesn't seem to understand what his pick up lines and flirting mean, she enjoys the energy of her paladin, and growls happily in his mind at his space-themed ones.

Offering a 'good night, beautiful', Lance leaves the bright hanger and begins the walk back through low-lit halls. He feels like he might finally get some real sleep now that his head feels clearer. Maybe he should go see Blue more often? Seeing an elevator, Lance decides to skip the long staircases and waves a hand over the sensor that calls it. He finds it funny how Alteans and Humans both invented elevators and yet neither made an alternative to waiting for it to arrive from unknown depths.

He hears the barely audible whoosh of it arriving before the doors open, light flickering for just a moment. Hesitating for a full tick before reminding himself there is nothing to be afraid of, Lance steps in and gives the command for the sleeping quarters.

He's humming to himself when there's a lurch and the lift stops. Frowning, he waits for the lift to move again. "Hello? Uh, computer? Sleeping quarters? Hello?"

There's no response, but the lights are on, so Lance assumes the castle's elevator systems must be the last thing Coran needed to repair. He would open the access panel and try to get it working, but without knowing which wires to find, he's more likely to give himself an electric shock, or shut off the lights. The thought of being trapped in here in the dark has Lance pacing, at first in circles, then switching to back-and-forth when they make the elevator feel even tinier.

... ... ... ...

It's been 15 minutes and Lance is attempting to keep calm so he can find a way out of this tiny prison.

He's tried climbing the elevator shaft, but as a single person it was impossible. He almost wishes this was an old Earth elevator, then he could climb the cables. But this is Altean tech. Coran had explained to the Paladins that the movement was achieved with something similar to Earth's magnets, though there was apparently some magic involved too. Bottom line, there's nothing, either on the walls or the compartment itself, for him to climb.

He'd repeatedly opened the access panel to stare at the wires inside. Three blue, four grey, one purple and two black. He'd counted them in the hopes of discovering which ones were power, which were the safety brakes and which were the lights. He was pretty sure there would be more wires for brakes and power and less for the lights. Which meant choosing the blue wires or the black. He's looked in the panel five times, each time closing it and going back to pacing.

"Screw it, maybe Coran is walking the halls by now..." climbing easily out the top hatch, Lance stands still for a moment, wishing he knew where he was. Taking a deep breath, Lance yells as loud as he can, both with words and without, the sound echoing.

There's only silence.

He ends up yelling for several minutes before finally sitting down, legs dangling through the hatch, breathing heavily. Sitting like this, Lance enjoys the illusion of space. Being inside the elevator feels confined, but up here, the ceiling goes on past his vision, and his feet can swing through open air.

"Why didn't I just take the qwiznaking stairs?"

... ... ... ...

Lance thinks he's been here for more than an hour. If asked how long exactly, he'd guess and say maybe an hour and a half - which in space time would be 60 _doboshes_, or one _varga_ \- if he did the math Pidge taught him for space time equations correctly. Which he thinks he has. He got bored fairly quickly and spent several minutes recalling the equations so that he had something to think about.

30 minutes (or 42 _doboshes_) after the elevator stopped, the lights in the shaft began to shut off, slowly shrinking the illusion, till Lance was left with little more than five metres of light, counting the elevator. He's been sitting on it's floor since.

He'd tried humming, but stopped when it felt like the dark was swallowing up the sound.

He'd tried opening the door, but without a pry bar of some kind, it wouldn't budge. Probably a safety measure; to stop what, he has no idea, but it sounded better than 'the castle wants me trapped'.

He'd tried listing all the people he knew at the garrison, and then all the people he'd met in space since finding the Blue Lion.

Now he was finally going to try the elevator wires in the hopes he could fix it and get out of here. If he had a coin he could… rummaging in his jacket pockets for a tick, he smiles as he finds a shiny silver GAC and decides the square ovals can be the 'head' side, flipping and catching the metal in a flourish. Slapping the coin down on the top of his other hand, Lance whispers, 'heads: grey wires for power' and uncovers the coin hesitantly.

It's tails. Blue it is then.

Pocketing the coin, Lance stands and opens the panel. He reaches in and selects a single blue wire before pausing. Please, let this be the right wire and not the safety brakes. Opening his eyes, he gives a short tug, enough to reveal one end of the - now useless - wire.

Nothing happens. After waiting a full minute and a half (one _dobosh_, says Lance's inner distracted mind) for something to happen, Lance let's out the breath he'd been holding in. He pulls the coin back out and whispers the same sentence, getting heads this time. He picks a grey wire and pulls. And once again noth-

He's in the middle of thinking it when the lights suddenly, unexpectedly, go out. There's pure darkness. Quiznak… he must have pulled a lights wire. He can't see his hand in front of his face, almost hitting his nose from waving it closer and closer in the need to see even a faint outline. Lance takes a shaky breath, he needs to stay calm. Though that's proving hard when what felt like a small area before, is now suffocating - the darkness heavy and endless. It's like he's floating in space.

Putting both hands out in front of him, Lance almost runs forwards, searching for a wall. His palms bump hard into one and instantly he sinks against it, arms curled around his knees, his left side pressed against the solid wall. He's already regretting pulling the second wire, the complete lack of light getting to him far faster than the loneliness did.

He's hiding the darkness behind his knees and arms wrapped around his head, pretending that the lights are still on, he just wants to close his eyes. He wishes he could lie to himself as well as he lies to his friends.

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

AN: this was only meant to be a one-shot, instead it's 3 chapters of angst. please comment if you liked this!  
(also let me know if you spot an error i missed when editing)


	2. A Taste of Freedom

Chapter 2: A Taste of Freedom

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He had fallen asleep at some point, restless dreams spent searching empty halls and rooms. Waking up, Lance felt confused. He wasn't in his bed… which meant he had fallen asleep elsewhere in the castleship, although that didn't explain the lights being off. Slowly, Lance became aware of the chill in the air, rubbing his arms on his sleeves. Standing up, Lance tentatively reached out, searching around with blind hands. The room was wide enough he could only _barely_ reach a wall on either side, the walls curved and what felt like a door's outline to his left. Now thoroughly confused, Lance wondered if Pidge or Keith put him in a closet as a prank. He called out... receiving a long, hollow echo from above.

Oh … Of course. The elevator. The damn, quiznaking, _stuck-on-who-knows-what-level_, elevator.

What time is it? He could have been asleep for five minutes or five hours… he had no way to tell. Shivering and rubbing at his arms again, Lance wonders why it's cold now; while he'd been awake the temperature had remained constant, maintained automatically. He paces as he thinks - there was that first wire he pulled, the blue one, where he thought nothing had happened. Must've been the heating, though the why or how answers escape him.

He needs to get out of here before he freezes. _Can _he freeze in here? Deciding it's better to find out from Coran or Allura than learning the hard way, Lance takes in couple of deep breaths and hollers into the void above him, pausing to listen to the echo carry his voice up and away.

After a while he takes a break (read: _gives up_) and sits on the cold floor. The shaft feels more empty now, so he fills it by singing, softly at first, then louder, defying the dark. He sings in English, then in his native Spanish, even a couple of Altean songs he'd heard Allura singing to herself when she didn't think anyone could hear her.

... ... ... ...

He's bored. _So bored_. Heck, he even contemplates whether he'd rather be in the elevator or the airlock. Even with no lights at least then he could stare at the stars for hours, and it couldn't be much colder.

After ruminating the what-ifs, (like _Keith not saving him in time_) Lance decides the elevator is better… nearly being sucked out into space is scary. It's what's been giving him nightmares after all.

He's about to start a third run of "_Call Me Maybe" _when he hears it, a clattering of metal on metal, like a whole bunch of dropped tools. Then a string of irritated swears. "_Pidge_," he breaths the name, hope filling him and making him leap to his feet. And then crashes to the floor again, having overbalanced without a natural sight guide. Placing a hand on one wall, Lance leaps up again, ears pricked to the muttering getting louder. He starts yelling, screaming as loud as he can, because he needs her to hear him, to get him out of here.

"Lance?" Her voice is so confused but clearly answering him. He almost collapses he's so relieved.

"Pidge! I need your help, I'm stuck in the elevator - can you get me out of here?"

"Yeah I can get you out… but what are you doing in the elevator at this hour?" He hears a bang, then a chime as Pidge hooks whatever tech she was carrying to the wall interface.

He explains as Pidge works, though rambling might be a better word for it. "I couldn't get back to sleep after I had a nightmare, so I tried taking a walk around the castle and ended up with Blue, who made me feel better about it, and I got in the elevator to get back to my room faster and it stopped. And so I've just been here in the dark for a while, a couple hours, maybe more... I tried working out how long but I fell asleep so I'm not sure anymore…"

There's a pause in whatever she is doing. "Dark? Lance, did you just say you've been trapped in there with no lights?"

He tries brushing it off, pretending he's still cool, suave Lance Mclain, "Yeah, no lights or heating since i tried activating the power. Don't worry about it, it's fine..." he's interrupted by a shout.

"Lance it is not fine!" he can picture the small paladin with one hand holding the tech and the other forming a fist at her side, a frown pulling her eyebrows down. He imagines her closing her eyes and releasing her anger with a huff. "I'm doing my best to get this open, but I don't think I can get this open electronically."

He can hear the hesitation, the way she's _not_ saying something. "You have to leave in order to find a pry bar, don't you?"

"I'm sorry." It's a small, but sincere apology, followed by an empathetic promise. "I'll be back as soon as I find one."

... ... ... ...

He goes back to counting time. If he's right, she's been gone for 13 minutes (or 18 _doboshes_) but the small taste of company means he now feels so very alone. He wishes he'd asked Pidge what time is was. Then he could have spent the waiting time calculating how long he'd been asleep for. She sounded surprised he was awake and said 'at this time'... Pidge was probably up late again, but doing what?

As though his thoughts had summoned the tiny green paladin, he hears the grin in her breathless voice as she speeds through the explanation of why it was so hard to find a decent prybar and that maybe she should mention that to Coran-

"Pidge. Focus: door?" Lance smiled, gently bringing her back on task.

"Right, right." She does something with the tech still connected to the elevator, because Lance hears a couple more chimes before he's startled by a loud _**bang**_, closely followed by the sudden appearance of light, albeit a long thin sliver of cold blue seeping through the crack. Lance blinks at the sudden brightness and steps back, giving Pidge room to work. She throws her weight into pulling on the bar, the door opens a few more centimeters. There's an ominous creaking from the bar and Lance prays out loud that it won't break. Grunting with effort, she gives one final pull as she kicks a block into the hand-width opening. She drops the pry bar which clangs to the floor. Lance moves to the door, peers out to see Pidge with a small laptop resting on a box, tapping away with a fierce concentration. "Almost done, Lance, almost done…" she murmured, grinning and cheering when the device dings, loud and clear, and the elevator replies with the same sound, mechanical doors finally opening wide.

Lance leaps over the small rectangular box in his haste to escape, and takes a moment to enjoy the spacious feeling of the hallway. Moment had, he strides over, picking Pidge up in a warm hug.

"Thank you, Pidge."

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

AN: Lance is free for now but there's still one chapter to go!


	3. Chapter 3: Nightmares and Fears

Chapter 3: "Nightmares and Fears"

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After Pidge rescued him, they had walked up the seven flights of stairs to the sleeping quarters. Lance had swiped a hand on his room's id panel. Collapsing facedown on top his bed, he stayed awake long enough to toe off his shoes before falling asleep.

…

_He's back in the elevator. Standing in front of the access panel._

_After a moment of staring he realises the number of wires inside has doubled. Lance reaches out then pauses… last time the wrong wires were blue and grey. This time he chooses a random black wire, but changes his mind and touches a purple one._

_There's an abrupt lurch and Lance is pushed to the roof of the elevator from free-fall, safety-breaks off and allowing him to drop inside the tiny room to his doom at the bottom of the castle._

_The fall doesn't last long; after a few seconds it stops and, from a lack of deathly-fireball, Lance somehow comes to the belief he passed through the bottom of the ship. Prying open the door, the earthling finds himself floating in space, stars and galaxies spread out before him. It's so beautiful._

_Before the stars start to disappear. _

_The darkness creeps in slow at first, beginning at the edges of his view while he's staring in awe at a silver and blue spiral galaxy. Eventually there is more dark than light, only individual stars left, and Lance lets out a sob as he watches the ones that remain disappear. _

_Space is so lonely and cold when it separates him from everything._

_He grew up __**surrounded**_ _by family, friends, people he knew loved him as much as he loved them. To have no choice in the chilling isolation? He begins to whimper, tears on his lashes freezing into little drops of water that float away in the dark when he blinks-_

"-nce! Wake up, come on buddy please, Lance…"

Lance does indeed wake up when he feels someone shaking him by a shoulder, bright glare of his bedroom lamp flicking on helps assure him that he's not dreaming anymore. He looks up to see Hunk looming over him, who has tears in his eyes, his mouth pulled into a grim line. He keeps his hand gently -fearfully - resting on Lance's shoulder like he doesn't want to let go just yet.

"Hey… you were tossing around in your sleep..." the bigger boy offers, helping Lance to sit up. He's about to apologise for waking him up when Hunk gestures to him to move over a bit and when he has, Hunk sits down beside him. His hand drifts from Lance's shoulder to gently brush a tear from his cheek before moving down to rest as comfortable weight on his back.

Lance sighs, leaning into the soothing warmth of his body, too distracted by his dream to feel self-conscious about using his friend as a giant teddy bear - at least for now.

He wonders if he could fall asleep like this, he feels so _safe_ with Hunk, when said boy breaks the comfortable silence with a question: "wanna talk about it?"

Lance considers. He'd had bad dreams occasionally when in the Garrison, they both had, about failing in class or missions going wrong. Bunking in a room with Hunk meant they would comfort each other, talk about the dreams and whatever had prompted it.

"Airlock." He mumbles. That was the first one at least. "Elevator." But it wasn't just the elevator that bothered him. And they both shared a terrifying theme... "Space."

Hunk is silent, both boys knowing that Lance won't leave it at a three word answer. He pauses a little at the end of each sentence but does explain his three word start.

"I wanted to go for a walk, clear my head. Had the same dream yesterday about getting stuck in that airlock - talking to Blue helped. I didn't want to walk up all those stairs afterwards, even though Shiro would say it's good training - Keith and Allura would probably agree - so... I hopped in one of the elevators. Thought it would save me some time."

He pauses for so long that Hunk replies in a gentle rumble, "but it didn't." It isn't a question.

Lance hums an agreement and continues, quietly telling him about getting stuck for what he _thinks_ was a few hours in the elevator. He'd been so glad to get out and listen to someone other than himself that he had forgotten to ask.

Hunk only reacts once: shoulders shaking just a little in a silent laugh when he learns it was Pidge making a racket loud enough to be heard through closed doors. "So the dream I woke you up from… was about being in the elevator again." Lance hums again. Hunk is silent, then asks "And 'space'?"

Another hum, this one less of agreement and more resigned. "Space…." he starts, "space because in both dreams I end up floating out there, all alone." Lance looks up at his friend, "Hunk… there's so _much_ Space between us and Earth."

Hunk is quiet, thinking for a minute while he pulls his arm tighter around Lance in a reassuring hug. "You know… Allura can make warp-gates that take us whole galaxies across the universe at a time. I bet she could make a few to take us home for a day or so. To let our families know we're ok, that we're alive - and piloting the coolest alien space-ships ever!"

Lance huffs a laugh despite himself. "Yeah Nadia and Silvio would be so mad at their Uncle Lance for not telling them he's the greatest pilot the Blue Lion's ever picked." A pause, then "thanks, Hunk."

They're silent for a few more minutes before he remembers. "I'm sorry I woke you up". At Hunk's confused 'huh?' he clarifies with "you know, cause it's still early?

Hunk makes a worried noise, "Lance… it's 9am… I didn't see you at breakfast so I came to find you." At Lance's nonplussed 'oh', Hunk gets off the bed and pulls Lance with him. He would tell him to change but Lance never managed PJs last night. Instead Lance picks up his discarded shoes and lets Hunk guide him out the door and towards the kitchen, his friend's hands warm where they sit on his shoulders.

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AN: written in 3 near-sleepless nights months ago and edited this week by a couple of my wonderful friends. I really hope you all enjoyed this little story!

I am going to try updating the stories i have waiting (the mermaid Au was giving me writer's block) so thank you for being patient with me!

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and have a wonderful New Year!


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